Many writers don’t include sex scenes in their stories, because they feel their genre doesn’t support them or to avoid alienating a specific part of their audience. Unfortunately, some writers lump sex and graphic violence together, or see all sex as pornographic, and say it should be avoided altogether. In an essay for Lit Hub, Elissa Sussman says sex scenes are both necessary and feminist.
“I love a horny heroine,” Sussman writes. “When I pick up a romance novel, I want a heroine who’s lusting over the hero’s pecs, lats, and also his butt. Hell, I’d take a heroine getting hot and bothered over her love interest’s credit score—just as long as she’s horny for something.”
A heroine should want something, Sussman explains, and in a romance story, that should include sex. “I’m not saying there’s anything fundamentally wrong with a closed-door romance,” she writes. “Authors should write what they feel comfortable with, and readers should pick up whatever floats their boat.”
But depictions of healthy, consensual, satisfying sex are important, Sussman adds. “Think about the novels you had to read in high school and college. I would bet that most of us read more descriptions of women being raped than we did of them experiencing any kind of sexual pleasure,” she says.
“Sex is a very specific kind of intimacy,” Sussman continues. “Showing that on the page and showing it as joyful and fun is vital.” Sex scenes build character and contribute to their development and their relationships. “A really good sex scene can do so much. It can validate and illuminate desire. It can make a reader feel seen. It can make a reader feel,” she writes. “Sex isn’t everything, but it is something. And we lose something precious when we try to sanitize romance novels—when we sanitize life—implicitly agreeing that desire is not necessary.”
